Tag: Self-Development

Overachievement and the Price We Pay Pt. 2 || Adult Achievement

I was thinking about fitness and trying to figure out why I am not exercising as much as I know I should. I thought, “When would I find the time?” And then I started to spiral into the shame and self-loathing of “never enough” pelting my mind with platitudes like “you have to make the time” and “the only person stopping you is you.” UGH!

Because I had just been watching Taylor Swift and Demi Lovato talk about body image issues, I cut off my negative self-talk about my body and I realized that even if I were going to start exercising now, I would not be doing it for the right reasons. I would be trying to achieve that perfect body and, as Swift said in one of her interviews, “There will always be some standard of beauty that you are not meeting.”

Anyway, springing from that, I’ve started thinking about achievement and overachieving in all spheres of life, how this ideal is thrust upon young people, especially students, and how it is damaging to us.

It is alluring to think we can do it all especially because social media makes it seem like there are people out there who have the same circumstances as you, the same 24-hours as you and they really do seem to be having it all and doing it all.

But I always try to remember that there is something missing in their life, there is something they are sacrificing, there is something that is suffering, there is something that you’re doing that is valuable to you that this person is not doing because they “have it all” and that same person you are looking at and loathing yourself is looking at someone else and doing the same thing. So when does it end? And why did it start in the first place?

Let’s get this straight! Having it all is not possible! It seems possible when you’re spiralling through it in your own brain and all that rhetoric that you’ve seen and heard are swirling through your mind.

But let’s really break it down and look at it objectively:

They say, “If you’re gonna get the exercise you need, you need to wake up at 5am and just get it in.”

They say, “You can’t get caught in the trap of eating out all the time. You have to prepare your meals at home. It might seem like you don’t have the time but if you just get up at 5am and pack that lunch bag, it will reap so many benefits.”

They say, “If you’re going to really start your business or write your book, the time is not going to just fall in your lap. You have to make the time. You have to wake up at 5am and just put in the work.”

They say, “If you’re going to start a family and have children, you’re barely going to get any sleep. Even if you do get some rest, you’ll be up again by 5am.”

I ask, “How many things am I supposed to be getting up at 5am to do?” Is there some magical 5am someone isn’t telling me about because my 5am turns to 6am in under 5 minutes?

They say, “Going for a second or third degree becomes harder the older you get. You need to start now.”

They say, “Finding the love of your gets harder as you get older because the pool of eligible singles gets smaller and the older people get, the more they’re set in their ways. If you’re going to try to get married, you need to start now.”

They say, “Having children gets a lot harder the older you get and there’s a high risk that your child will have defects the longer you wait. If you’re going to start a family, you need to start now.”

They say, “Working out and keeping that fit body gets harder the older you get. You need to start now.”

They say, “The money you save on eating out and recreation could go towards buying a house. Your mortgage payments are significantly reduced the younger you are at the time of purchase. You need to buy a house now.”

You need to read as many books as you can now. Watch videos. Listen to podcasts. Attend webinars and networking events. Take in as much knowledge as you can now. Grow your network. Build up your skills now. Take short courses now. Write that book now. Work on yourself now. Start multiple income streams now. Enjoy your life now, You need to start now. Start now. Start now. Start now. Now. Now.

How many things am I supposed to start NOW?

I’m content that I am not exercising the way I should right now. I’m not reading as many books as I would like to read now. No, I’m not promoting laziness or poor health or self-limitation or procrastinating. I’m promoting reasonableness and balance and rest and self-determination. You don’t have to do all the things they say you have to do and you certainly don’t have to do them right now. It’s not even possible and it’s counterproductive and propelling a growing mental illness and burnout epidemic.

Right now, I am working on writing more, mostly because I’m a writer and I need to write and secondly, because I’m building a career in writing. I’m also reading more this year than I have in any years prior, mostly because it’s relaxing and fulfilling and secondly, because I need to read more to build my skills as a writer. I eat mostly plant-based, mostly home-cooked meals that I make myself and that takes a lot of work. I generally go outside once a day to water my 30+ plants with my husband and I get a little movement and fresh air in there. I work over 40 hours a week as a full-time teacher. I generally save about 15% of my income each month and I don’t have a habit of overspending. I spend a lot of time building my friendship with my husband and trying to keep in touch with the family and friends that matter to me. I take my faith and my spirituality very seriously and I spend several hours a week working on that aspect of my life. I get a relatively good amount of sleep.

I do a lot but until I just wrote all those things down, I didn’t realize how much I was doing or how well I was doing. If I let my mind run wild, I spend most of my time being discouraged about everything I’m not doing and how I’m not doing the best at leveraging the time and money and resources I have. I should be changing out my wardrobe month by month to make it more professional (but to do that, I’d have to save less or stop saving altogether.) I don’t drink enough water. I’m not getting an ideal or consistent amount sleep. I need to exercise more (but, to do that, I’d have to get less sleep.) I need to read more (but, to do that, I’d have to get less sleep or cut into the time I spend with my husband.) My house isn’t clean enough. I’m paying for cable every month but I’m barely watching TV. I’m not practising enough self-care, getting enough recreation and me-time. My skin is a mess. Why don’t I go see the dermatologist? When was the last time you did your nails or shaped your eyebrows? You look disgusting. Are you spending enough time with your family? You don’t call them enough. You don’t text your friends enough. What kind of friend are you? You’re not present enough on social media. You spend way too much time on your phone.

All of those thoughts make regular train rides in my head.

If you’re like me, you’re likely doing a lot but still feeling like it’s not enough, like you’re not enough. One day when you’re spiralling, make some time to do what I just did. Make a list of all the things you are doing. No matter how small they may seem, don’t self-edit, just write them down. Write all of it. You might be surprised that the problem is not that you’re lazy or unproductive or unambitious. It might be that the bar set for you was made for a giraffe, when you’re a cheetah. And if you speak openly with some other people about how you’re feeling you may also find that, while they’re criticising you, the cheetah, for not jumping high enough to reach the bar, they’re also criticising the giraffe for not getting there fast enough.

Re-educate your mind. Set your own bar. Run your own race. “Overachieving” is for losers.

Overachievement and the Price We Pay Pt. 1 || Juvenile Achievement

Clearly, there is a large pool of students (the majority) who are “just achieving” or even “underachieving” but that’s not what we’re talking about and one set of problems does not invalidate another. Furthermore, the more overachievers overachieve is the steeper the gradient of what Sir Ken Robinson calls “educational inflation.” The overachievers set the bar and the higher they raise it, the harder it is for anyone to achieve anything at all and that’s a big problem.

So, with that disclaimer and, at the risk of still sounding elitist and irrelevant, let’s talk about the struggles of overachievers.

Ashley gets mostly A’s and an occasional B but she’s really struggling and failing in Math. Ashley’s mother graduated top of her class—valedictorian, 10 extracurriculars, Head Girl, the works—and Ashley cannot be anything less! Getting less than straight A’s is a reflection on her mother, it is a waste of her mother’s investment of time and money and it makes more real the possibility that Ashley will not be successful in life. She’s heard it all before.

Darrien’s father gets his report card from school. He doesn’t even look at Darrien’s average, which is a high B. “You placed 10th in the class? How? What do those 9 people have that you don’t have?”

Zanielle is an A+ student, active in extracurriculars both inside and outside of school, well-read and an absolute perfectionist. Zanielle’s brother goes to a school where merits are awarded freely. You get a merit just for answering a question correctly in class. By the end of the school year, Zanielle’s brother has 15 merits on his report card and, by some stroke of luck and a lot of hard work, Zanielle has 6—all because of that one teacher who actually believes in giving merits, but of course, not without effort. Zanielle earned those merits and she was proud of them but her dad says, “Why couldn’t you get as many merits as your little brother?”

Those are slightly altered versions of real-life experiences that students have shared with me. They highlight the root cause of a lot of children‘s overachieving and perfectionism — parents.

Now, I have no intention of villainising parents. No blame games here. In fact, although I have many students who don’t, all of the students in the scenarios mentioned above have pretty good relationships with their parents. Most days, Ashley even considers her mother to be one of her closest friends. None of the parents mentioned above is a bad parent. They do not push their children to overachieve because they are cruel but rather because, at the heart of it, they’re scared. They have cultivated a mindset of scarcity and fear. They believe that this mindset is realistic and that they have a right to push their child and to view things the way they do and, if I really stand up and step into their shoes, I might be inclined to say they’re right.

These parents live and work in a world where resources are limited. College places are limited. Opportunities are limited. In the working world, good jobs are limited, positions of responsibility are limited, honor is limited and, in the minds of parents, and eventually their children, all of these things are related. All of these things hinge on one thing—success in school. Scholastic success is like currency: the more you have, the more you’re worth and the greater your chances of exchanging that currency for success in the real world.

This has been a frightening reality in my teaching experience. Burnout, once a term used to describe frazzled corporate executives, is now a phenomenon with which high school students are far too familiar. By the penultimate year of high school, they’re done, spent, exhausted. Their performance starts to decline and that just leads to more pressure from parents and some less than understanding teachers.

Karelle was an unusual case. She was always quiet but she was smart. She got high B’s in my class and sometimes A’s. In one exam session, a teacher thought she was cheating—which she wasn’t and would never! The teacher confiscated her exam paper, told her she wouldn’t be allowed to finish and that she would get a zero for that exam. Karelle thought about how that zero would cause her average to plummet. She couldn’t focus on anything else. This was her first paper for this exam season and after that, she did not attend any more exams. She couldn’t. She saw all she had worked for all her life in school going down the drain just like that and she snapped. There was no coming back. She was never herself again.

Karelle’s situation is special because Karelle’s parents never really put pressure on her to overachieve. The pressure always came from Karelle herself. It is important then to note that even if parents are not pushing their children to fit into a narrow mould of success, there are still extrinsic factors like social media, the school system, other students and even teachers and administration that can make students feel forced to meet or even exceed a certain status quo.

In the Jamaican school system, students are typically required to sit at least 8 subjects in their secondary school exit exam, CSEC. Some of these subjects they choose and others, like English and Math, tend to be compulsory. However, in the midst of rising uncertainty in the job market, limited spaces at colleges and sixth form programmes and limited opportunities for scholarships, some students just want to do a little extra just to push themselves over the edge, ahead of the curb, just to secure their space in the world, just to be sure. So some students will sit 9 subjects. Other students find loopholes and start sitting 10 or 11 subjects. It has metastasized to the point where the students who I work with who are sitting 9 and 10 subjects are the norm, while the students choosing to sit the required 8 are now considered average or even low achievers. Coupled with that, they participate and multiple extracurricular activities and reach out for positions of responsibility and even make time to volunteer just to secure their space in the world, just to be safe, just to be sure. This is the educational inflation we were talking about.

So what are the repercussions?

• Poor mental health and self-destructive behaviours

• Stress and burnout

• Comparison which leads to endless competition, jealousy, discouragement, low self-worth and envy

• Strained relationships between parents and children

• Aversion to failure and inability to learn from mistakes

• Narrow definitions of success — definitions that do not prioritise happiness or health

• Dishonesty / loss of integrity — students, parents and teachers cheat or cut corners to get ahead

• Productivity loss and increased inefficiency

In South Korea, the Suneung exam which students need to sit in order to enter into college, is being more and more criticized for bearing these repercussions. Over the years, Suneung has become ever more taxing on students because the pressure is high in the work world. Unemployment is rising and one of the best ways to stave off unemployment is to get accepted into one of the three prestigious “SKY universities.” Since it’s only three universities and students and parents are constantly upping their standards, the competition is getting more and more intense. But even graduating from these top universities is no guarantee that you will get a well-paying job or any job at all and that takes an even greater mental toll on students.

Here’s an excerpt from a 2018 BBC article:

Dr Kim Tae-hyung, a psychologist working in Seoul, says: “Korean children are forced to study hard and compete with their friends.

“They are growing up alone, just studying by themselves. This kind of isolation can cause depression and be a major factor in suicide.”

Globally, suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people, but in South Korea it is the number one cause of death for young people aged between 10 and 30.

The country also has the highest levels of stress among young people aged 11 to 15 compared with any other industrialised country in the world, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Dr Kim says the pressure in Korean society to go to a good university and get a good job begins early.

“Children are feeling nervous from a very young age. Even first-year elementary students talk about which job pays the most.”

More and more, this is becoming a reality in many pockets of the Caribbean and I’m sure, in many other places.

So how did we get here? Maybe after the Great Depression, maybe after the 2008 Recession. I couldn’t tell you.

The bigger question is: how do we solve it and how do we recover?

My honest answer: I don’t know.

Saying “just do your best and don’t compare yourself to others” can sound like a farce because the world is going to compare you to others so you have to protect yourself. Prioritizing happiness and health sounds like a fairytale in the midst of rising global uncertainty. It’s hard to tell parents and children to focus on happiness in a dominant culture of scarcity because it takes cash to live and the truth is that a certain minimal standard of living is necessary for happiness.

Even though I don’t have all of the answers, here are some things I know to be true:

• Students need emotional security at home. They need to know that the love of their parents is not based on their how successful they are in school but that they will be supported and loved whether or not they are high achievers.

• Children need strong work ethic from home. Teach them how to do chores at home and do them well. Involve them in problem solving at home and teach them financial literacy. Training them at home will help them to do better in school. Moreover, the training they get at home will teach them skills and life lessons that will prepare them for the adult world and will prove more valuable than anything they could learn at school. (Take it from me!)

• Students need to be allowed to fail and learn from it. No browbeating. No name-calling. No comparison to anyone else. Just: Where did you go wrong? What could you do better next time? When and how do you plan to make these changes? Done. Move on.

These tips will help to build emotional, social and mental resilience that will truly help them to be prepared for life in the midst of any circumstance.

What I know is this: We can’t control the world but we can control the qualities we build in ourselves and our children to cope with the world. Packing more and more pressure on students to achieve in preparation for an uncertain job market is like adding layers and layers of raincoats on a child in preparation for possible heavy rains. If it doesn’t rain very hard or doesn’t rain at all, the child is resentful that they had to spend all that time being hot and sticky and uncomfortable and probably developed heat stroke in preparation for something that never even happened or wasn’t even as bad as people made it out to be. If it does rain however, no matter how many rain coats they have on, it will only be a false sense of safety. They can’t just stand there in their many raincoats. They need to learn how to navigate the puddles, how to find shelter, how to keep moving despite the rain, how to turn the rain into an opportunity. Pretty soon, they realize that the raincoats barely mattered and they probably should have focused on learning the skills to handle rain instead of cloaking up to hide from it when it came.

No plummeting job market, no low employment, no high cost of living can overcome a child who has been trained to be a confident, self-sufficient, self-assured, resilient, responsible critical thinker. That training starts from the home and that training is deeply rooted in unpopular wisdom and unconditional love. That child, when they face unemployment as an adult, will be more likely to work odd jobs, turn to entrepreneurship and seek out help and advice until they make it. That child will make better decisions, decisions that will help them to be truly successful in every sense of the word.

The Model School for the 21st Century — An Ideal System

In many ways, the education system of today still looks a lot like it did decades ago, besides the addition of computer technology, obtrusive security cameras and maybe a few more cars on campus. Everything in the world around it has changed and will continue to change drastically, while education, as a global system, remains largely untransformed, which leads me to wonder what future are we really educating children for?

While true education begins at home (that’s another article for another day!) there is much that the school system can and should do in adding value to the education of young minds and creating confident, competent, astute and employable candidates for the adult world.

But it’s not going to be as easy as some minor tweaks. It’s going to take a complete overhaul. As educational expert, Sir Ken Robinson championed, what we need is not reform but revolution.

Here are the systems and skills that would make 21st century education truly worthwhile:

  • Apprenticeship — The only thing students leave high school capable of doing is being students. But what if apprenticeship was a foundational part of a student’s learning experience from the time they enter high school? Students would get experience in the working world by shadowing a professional in a particular field, seeing how they work and even getting a chance to do some of the things, not as a one-off opportunity, but as a fundamental part of their education. Learn more about this idea in my previous article, Apprenticeship and Internship as the Future of Work and Education.
  • Immersion and Content-Relevance — A key part of why apprenticeship works is that students are immersed in an environment where they can apply what they are learning in school immediately as they learn it. The modern education system is predicated on the idea that what you learn now, you will apply years later. That does not foster true meaningful learning. That is not how the human brain works. Students need to see immediate, repeated and useful applications of what they learn in school. If I catch some water in my watering can with the intention of watering my plants next week, then by next week, when I return to the watering can, I’ll find some of the water there but most of it will have evaporated. That’s how knowledge works too. The longer you wait to use it is the more you stand to lose it. And then, as adults, students have to learn a lot of the fundamentals all over again and then what were the 16 years of schooling for?
  • Clear paths defined early — Students need to see where this whole education thing is going so put them on a career path early. Instead of letting them pick subjects in school, let them pick careers and stick to them for a while. You might be thinking, Won’t that limit their options, boxing them into careers so early? What if they hate it and they get stuck? Clearly, they would be allowed some flexibility, maybe pursuing a new career each academic year or sticking to one if they truly feel that it’s a good match. However, the truth is that the sooner they are exposed to career fields in a sustained way is the sooner they can truly decide which one truly fits and the less likely they are to make poor hurried decisions at the end of high school and end up stuck in a field they hate for the rest of their adult life simply because of bad information.
  • Career exposure — Annual Career Day is not enough. Students are confused and limited when it comes to career choices. Even the most brilliant and capable students finish high school and university bewildered as to what to do with their lives because liking or excelling at a subject in school does not necessarily mean that you will like it or excel at it as a career. Furthermore, the world has so many careers to offer but many students continue to be caged into the various subdivisions of the doctor-lawyer-Indian chief narrative. Internships and apprenticeships can help with this but there also need to be career talks that are more targeted and more regular than just once a year. Check out the first episode of my Miseducated Career Guide Series here.
  • Working together across age groups — School is the only time in our lives when we are limited to working only with people of the exact same age. In the real world, there are no age barriers. They certainly don’t exist in the workplace. Even children, when they are not in school, play, work and build relationships with their siblings, cousins and neighbours who differ in age, so why are classrooms divided by age? This, I believe, is one of the root causes of ageism and generation gaps that create barriers to growth and change in the workplace. The alternative multi-age classroom has been shown to have innumerable benefits to students’ learning autonomy, interpersonal skills and critical thinking ability.

  • Integrated studies — Yes, there is a subject in the Jamaican primary school system known as Integrated Studies but that’s not what we’re talking about here. When I listen to economists on the news forecasting the next economic downturns I think, “Wow! They’re such great historians!” Yet, in school, we treat economics and history as discrete fields, neatly package them and call them “subjects.” But there are no subjects. These divisions are arbitrary and artificial. There is only one subject and that is life. All these other fields are just avenues to learn about that one all-important subject. Yes, subject divisions make it easier to hire teachers, to create timetables and to shuffle students from one class to another throughout the day but it does not serve to build the critical thinking and problem-solving skills we are so desperately longing to foster in our children. Interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary learning are not ideals. They are a need. The world is full of wicked problems, so inextricably intertwined that the roots are invisible. In the real world, there are no divisions and once we teach students to see that economics is history and geography is science and biology is chemistry and literature is physics is music is art is life, then we will start to see the “wicked solutions” we so long for.
  • Highly qualified passionate and well-paid facilitators — We cannot raise education to the next level if we do not raise educators to the next level. Read that again. Find out more about a bottom-up approach to a good education system in my article, Adding Value to Education from the Bottom Up.
  • Basic adult knowledge and skills — Building a résumé. Creating a career portfolio. Filing taxes. Mental health education, emotional hygiene and coping skills. Driving. Basic entrepreneurial skills. Cooking. Home gardening. How insurance works. Investment. Kitchen gardening. Basic home repairs. Basic car repairs. Communication skills. How to act in an interview. Sound health and nutrition practices. How to establish an online presence. Brand building… and the list goes on. Like I said, education starts in the home so I’m not saying all of these things need to be taught in school. But somewhere between birth and the time a human enters the adult world, the things they are actually going to need to know for day-to-day living should be taught.
  • Civics — It is a relic of a Jamaican education that I never met but I have heard many people in my life sing its praises. By all indications, it really seems like something worth revisiting. There is so much talk about molding children into decent humans, teaching them to be good citizens and yet, we got rid of the one subject in school that was solely devoted to doing just that. Now might be the time to bring it back, no?
  • Tailored syllabi focused less on information and more on skills — In a world where students can access bucket loads of information right at the digits, shouldn’t we be more focused on teaching them how to sift out the irrelevant, how to think, how to synthesize, how to manipulate information and other requisite skills for navigating the modern world? If they can access raw information anywhere, whenever they need it, do we need to spend 8 hours a day 5 days a week loading them up with content? Brains are not buckets. Brains are builders.
  • Dynamic syllabi and infrastructure that change with the times — The world is ever-changing. In their content, their organizational systems and their physical infrastructures, schools need to be designed in an agile way so they can move as the world moves. Multi-purpose spatial designs, multi-purpose time slots, flexible syllabi — that is the future of education.
  • Critical thinking — It’s been the biggest buzzword in education for the past decade. It’s the central goal of every single educational reform programme in the world right now. But the big question is: How do we do it? How do we get students to think critically? The answer is simple: get students to solve real-world problems as a regular part of their daily life. Well… how do we do that? That is not as clear-cut. It looks different wherever you go. The good thing is it is what underpins a lot of the ideas we’ve discussed previously — the dynamic syllabi and infrastructure, the focus on skills instead of content, integrated studies, apprenticeship opportunities and the like. It’s not far-fetched. We just need to open our minds to the revolution.

  • Minimal focus on ranking and grades — I see how it destroys them and there’s no real case for how it benefits them in the real world. The Scandinavians and other Europeans have been seeing great success by pursuing this learning style. Maybe the rest of us could give it a try, even incrementally.
  • Respect the arts and other non-academic disciplines — We need art. There! I said it! We need it! Art and artistic careers are not going anywhere but students who hold on to their creativity in school often have to fight for it. Students who want to pursue something “non-academic” like a hands-on trade or skill have to fight for it. They have to fight teachers and students and a vast world of adults to view it as valuable. But the arts are valuable to all of us. And integrating creative arts and skills training with learning can even make the learning process more fruitful. As famed psychologist, Dr. Brené Brown says, “There is no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and those who don’t [and] unused creativity is not benign.”

I don’t have all the answers. I don’t even have all the questions. What I have are facts and lived experiences and informed opinions. What I know for a certainty is that the way we continue to do education will not sustain us. We need the revolution and we need it now.

If you have any revolutionary ideas I have not mentioned here, I would love to hear them. Please leave a comment or email misseducationja@gmail.com.

Miseducation Reversal

Hello, my name is Khadijah and I’m miseducated.

Now, didn’t that feel great? So you’ve admitted you have a problem. Now what?

I tell my students all the time: once you’re done with this school thing, make sure you go get yourself an education.

Here are 10 ways you can go from miseducation to re-education on your own time:

1. YouTube: Yes, the YouNiversity of choice—the holy grail of modern learning needs no introduction or explanation. Eat your heart out.

2. Short courses: Many are free online but there’s no harm in paying for a good course, whether online or in your area, that will contribute to your personal or professional development. It’s an investment. Just make sure the course and the offerer of the course are high-quality and legitimate.

Here in Jamaica, you can find short courses that can lead you to a career at the Real Estate Training Institute, the Face Place, Heart Trust NTA and the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority, just to name a few.

Other institutions include the UWI Open Campus, UTech, Edna Manley College, UCC, MIND and the Media Training Institute. Udemy, Google Digital Garage and FutureLearn are some reputable online sites. iTunesU is pretty limited but you can still find have meaningful learning experiences with one of their recorded courses where you can learn at your own pace from some of the best lecturers in the world.

3. Online talks, lectures, conferences and webinars: Recordings from TED, Talks at Google, SouthBySouthWest (SXSW) and any other conferences or webinars available live or recorded in your area are great learning opportunities. Clubhouse talks are my latest go-to for dynamic live online learning. I tried MasterClass recently too and it’s been life-changing.

4. Networking opportunities: People are a great source of education. Some of the greatest gems I have collected in life have been from having fun chats, business meetings and even soul-searching conversations with people in my personal network.

So put yourself out there and expand your circle. Listen twice as much as you speak. And really really listen.

Anything that comes out of your mouth is something you already know. Anything that goes into your ears is an opportunity to grow.

5. Get a mentor / become an intern or apprentice: It’s easier said than done. Not everyone is willing to offer their time and expertise freely. But maybe it doesn’t have to be free. You could offer yourself as an intern or apprentice so that your mentor feels that they are benefitting as well and you learn even more that way.

You could even find a mentor online whom you may not even know personally. Just by watching, reading and listening to their content, you could learn a lot. Be sure to get mentors for different aspects of your life. For more on this, read my article on the value of interning and apprenticeships here.

6. Volunteering: Meaningful volunteering opportunities that truly promote growth and development are not always easy to find. While serving food to the poor, volunteering at a children’s home or helping out at an infirmary are valuable opportunities to build empathy and learn useful life lessons, they are not readily available options in a world that has shifted online.

Moreover, sometimes, we want volunteer opportunities that will help move us in the direction of our career goals, expand our networks or teach us new skills.

For that, one site I have discovered recently is Catchafire. It’s a global virtual service that matches volunteers with people and companies who need their services. Why not give it a try?

While you’re at it, enter “Volunteer Opportunities Online” in a search bar to see what other options are available in your area. Almost any business you could think of would accept your voluntary services so locate one you’re interested in and then just ask.

7. Travelling: Yes, it sounds luxurious and maybe out of your reach but you’d be surprised to find that it’s not. You might be able to travel on a scholarship or win trips by entering competitions. If you’re working, you can save towards it.

You can have memorable travel experiences even in your own country. The benefits of travel for personal mental and emotional growth are underrated. For information on how to have great travel experiences on a budget, check out Goody on a Budget and Adventures from Elle.

8. Journalling: You’d be surprised at how much you can learn from your own mind. I journalled every day of my life on my phone for a year and a half and it both changed and saved my life. Sometimes, by just seeing your thoughts concretely in front of you, you find insights you would not have been able to grasp when the thoughts were just swirling around in your head.

9. Seeing a therapist: I think everyone should see a trained therapist at least once in their life. We can never truly see the world as it is; we only see the world as we are. The more we raise our levels of intra-personal intelligence is the more we increase the clarity with which we can see the outside world.

It might be a little costly but if you’re doing it just once, plan for it and view it as an investment in yourself.

There may also be opportunities for free therapy in your area, especially if you’re in college or high school. Ask around.

10. Reading: Well, this isn’t new. Books are a traditional but still effective way to learn more about the world and even about yourself.

My advice: don’t let anyone tell you when, what or how to read. Set your own reading goals. Read what you like, whether it’s business books, children’s books, poetry, self-help, travel books, anything you enjoy.

And by the way, never let a book hold you hostage. If you’re not liking it, you have no obligation to finish it.

Of course, you don’t have to explore all these options and certainly, you won’t explore them all at once but dip your big toe in the pool of true education.

In many ways, our education system has failed us but the world is still ours for the taking. Gary Matalon once said very simply at a high school careers rap, “There’s learnings to get from everywhere.” Go get it.

#TeacherMaximize2019

#20Greateen is almost over and what a year it has been! What does 2019 hold for you? If you’re a teacher, you’re probably thinking, like you do every year:  How can I make more money? How can I maximize my impact? How can I make more time to be free and to live the life I want?

Here are some jobs that you are probably in a prime position to do in 2019 if you wish to make some extra cash on th side or venture out on your own:

  1. YouTuber / Content Creator:  YouTube is the new classroom. We live in a DIY world where people of all ages are taking their education into their own hands. But even with the emergence of YouTube, IGTV, Vimeo, Facebook Live and other video-sharing platforms, there is still a palpable shortage of quality online content, especially for school-age students in the Caribbean. Do you have high-quality lessons, worksheets, videos and other content? If you don’t, could you make some in the coming year? You could even create a website to offer your content to the public or create an online course on a site like Udemy. The world is your oyster. You are the pearl.
  1. Blogger:  You have a special field of expertise in both your content area and in education itself. Can you help students get more out of their education? Can you help other teachers do their jobs better? Can you highlight major problems in your field, open discussions, create community and offer solutions? Then, welcome, my friend! You’re a blogger!
  1. Author:  Everybody has a story. It could be the story of your life, your job, your field of study or something else. Commit to writing one chapter a week or even one chapter a month. Set aside a day and time each week to work on it. Even if it’s rough, just write; you can edit later. You can even ask someone else to edit with/for you. But don’t hold back. Just go for it!
  1. Tutor:  This is probably something most teachers are already involved in. Are you? Could you get involved? If you are already involved, how can maximize your reach? What can you do to stand out by offering something no one else is offering?
  1. Consultant:  You are an expert in your field. You have knowledge and skills that people want but don’t have the time or skills to acquire. Give the people what they want, what they need. What they need is you.
  1. Professional Hobbyist:  I know so many teachers who are super talented at things that have nothing to do with their jobs. An English teacher who is a vegan chef. A Math teacher doubling as a party decorator. A dancer/choreographer posing as an Economics teacher. You might be a skilled nail technician, gardener, editor, baker or public speaker. Maybe, thus far, you have only used your special skill for fun or to help out friends and family. But why not take a leap turn that passion into a career?

I know it may seem daunting but here’s how to start:

  • Do some research by asking questions or using the Internet.
  • Get a support group made up of people who are willing and able to offer technical assistance, advice, critical feedback, inspiration, encouragement and emotional support. Ask for help.
  • Stop doubting yourself. There are lots of people out there who are less qualified than you are, who are doing the things that you’ve only dreamed of doing simply because they believe in themselves.
  • Stop waiting for everything to be perfect.
  • Stop procrastinating.
  • Surround yourself with inspiration daily.
  • Give your goal a date and break it down into micro-sized pieces.
  • Keep your phone off and far away while you work.
  • Just start.

You can do it and you have everything to gain.

When I started this blog, I had a burning desire to do something new and all I knew was that I just didn’t want that fire to die. So I just started. And even though it’s not some major sensational success just yet, I felt, from my very first post, that something inside me shifted. I am changed and I have no intention of turning back. I realize now that as I am molding my dreams, my dreams are molding me.

Let’s make 2019 #20ShineTeen #20FineTeen #20MineTeen. (We’ll work on the hashtags but you get the point.) Whoever you are, whatever you do, take control of your life. Take the lessons you’ve learned this year and make next year the best ever. Let the miseducated rise and grind.

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